


Distractions

by Kirkwallgirl



Series: Freckles and Feathers [5]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Custom Male Hawke, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 11:24:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6608833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirkwallgirl/pseuds/Kirkwallgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There was a light in the high clinic window - a low light, perhaps just a single candle - and the sight made Anders’ heart skip, and his breath catch in his chest. Alarm - his own and Justice’s - made his blood roar, and brought a rush of adrenaline to his veins.</p>
<p>      <i>No one who means you harm would leave a candle burning,</i> he told himself, but that did nothing to ease his fear.</p>
<p>      <i>Not unless they want you to think they’re friendly,</i> another part of him said, and this was a part that had kept him alive through all these years, so Anders was inclined to listen to it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distractions

**Author's Note:**

> This is an older snippet of pre-relationship Jay and Anders that I am quite fond of, weirdnesses and all. For someone who loves pining as much as I do, I don't write it nearly often enough!
> 
> For those who want to know what this Hawke looks like, [HERE](http://orig00.deviantart.net/675a/f/2016/100/2/1/embrium_copy_by_idaharra-d9yffgd.jpg) is Jay Hawke with some Embrium flowers, as befits the story! :D

Anders was weary to his bones when he walked slowly back to his clinic. Darktown around him was as quiet as it could ever be in the dark hours of the night, or what would have been dark hours in most parts of the city - down here it was almost always dark. He could still hear people scuttling through the narrow passages and corridors, and whispering around their fires when he passed them by. Some voices rose to greet him, or to beg for a favor - _the fire is almost out, Healer; we’re running out of water, Healer; my sister can’t sleep for the pains, Healer, can you help her?_ \- and he did what he could for them, and with every little favor he felt more wrung out and stretched thin. Skin and bones clad in ragged, dirty clothes, dragging himself forward one step at a time, scarcely strong enough to keep his feet from dragging. He couldn’t afford to have the soles of his boots wear through.  
  
      There was a light in the high clinic window - a low light, perhaps just a single candle - and the sight made Anders’ heart skip, and his breath catch in his chest. Alarm - his own and Justice’s - made his blood roar, and brought a rush of adrenaline to his veins.  
  
      _No one who means you harm would leave a candle burning_ , he told himself, but that did nothing to ease his fear.  
  
      _Not unless they want you to think they’re friendly_ , another part of him said, and this was a part that had kept him alive through all these years, so Anders was inclined to listen to it.  
  
      The doors to the clinic were shut, but not locked. He stared at them for a while, confused, slightly queasy from the rapid flutter of his heart and the adrenaline, before the realization dawned. He sighed heavily with relief, pressing his forehead against the cool wood of the door for a moment.  
  
      _Hawke_. It was just Hawke. Had he not left Hawke to clean up at the clinic when he ran after the terrified girl who had come to fetch him to help her mama, who was in labor and bleeding heavily?  
  
      But why would Hawke still be there? It must have been well past midnight already.  
      Anders slipped quietly and quickly into the clinic, and flinched at the shadows that danced on the walls when the draft made the candle flame flicker.  
  
      The clinic was quiet, and no movement greeted Anders.  
  
      “Hawke?” he asked, letting his bag slide down his arm. He set it onto a cot when he passed by, and worked his shoulders, still uneasy to the bone. His muscles ached from the tension, but he couldn’t make himself relax.  
  
      He found Hawke behind the pile of books and papers Hawke had dragged to the clinic earlier, and a pile of mended pants he had similarly dragged in in a sack. Hawke was slumped onto the table, red hair spilling in coils and tangles dangerously close to a lit stub of a candle. Anders’ heart skipped another beat ( _oh Maker he’s collapsed he’s had a stroke or a heart attack and he’s dead he’s-_ ), but relief rushed through him almost immediately when Hawke shifted a little. He uttered a tired laugh and slumped, massaging his chest under the heavy coat.  
  
      Anders had learned early on that Hawke could fall asleep almost anywhere, almost any time. He had no trouble staying awake when he needed to, but when it wasn’t necessary, he just tended to zone out and nod off. The first time Anders had seen it happen had been in the Wounded Coast. The party had been sitting around a campfire at dusk, drinking tea out of drinking bowls. Hawke had started out chatty, but eventually he had gone quiet and mostly listened to the others talk, watching them with sleepy affection until he had just closed his eyes and rolled against Carver’s shoulder, fast asleep.     Anders remembered the jolt seeing that had given him. He’d half-jumped up to his feet, but Carver had just laughed.

      “Don’t look so shocked. He does this all the time. Mid-sentence, even.”  
  
      When Carver had gotten up to crawl into the tent he had meant to share with his brother, he had just shrugged Hawke off his shoulder (with a smile that said that he was enjoying the display quite a bit, no matter how normal he claimed it to be) and Hawke had rolled onto his back with a huff. Instead of waking up, Hawke had merely fidgeted a little to get into a better position and started snoring softly.  
  
       After that Anders had seen it happen more frequently, and in the oddest places. He had found Hawke sleeping on the stairs leading to Gamlen’s house - in broad daylight - which had been both foolish and dangerous, but Hawke had been lucky that time, and a few times after it, too. Hawke had fallen asleep several times during a game of Wicked Grace in the Hanged Man, sometimes with a winning hand, sometimes with nothing at all. He had fallen asleep in the clinic many times as well, during the day - sometimes when it was quiet, sometimes when he was holding some sick child’s hand, and sometimes in the middle of some chore, like now.  
  
      Hawke’s head was resting in the crook of his arm, and the other hand was curled lightly around an stained pestle. A mortar full of finely powdered embrium was hugged almost to Hawke’s chest, and the air around him smelled sweetly of summer. Anders carefully brushed Hawke’s hair away from the candle to keep it from burning or being caught in a puddle of wax. The hair felt surprisingly soft in his fingers - it looked so frizzy and thick that it should by all accounts have felt coarse, but it didn’t. Anders smiled, and ran his thumb over a curl resting on his fingers, and then caught himself. He yanked his hand back with a gasp almost like the hair burned against his skin.  
  
      Blood flushed onto his cheeks and down his neck, and he cursed himself. There was a surdge of disapproval from Justice, a tangle of feelings from the back of his mind. He spun on his heels, and raked his fingers through his own hair in frustration.  
  
      _He is a distraction_ , said a thought in his head, and he knew this to come from Justice - Anders was dedicated to his cause, but didn’t believe, as Justice did, that it was worth abandoning everything else for. He could still have a life, he _needed_ it.  
  
      He was still just a man. Just an Anders.  
  
      But no, Justice had a point. Not because Hawke would be a distraction, but because the life Anders led… that life was not compatible with love, with a relationship. He could not bring all that into Hawke’s life. Hawke wouldn’t want all that difficulty and danger, and Anders didn’t want to bring it to him. How could he ever forgive himself if yet another person he… cared for got hurt or died because of him?  
      And even thinking that was too much in truth - why would someone like Hawke love someone like Anders anyway? He lived in the sewers! He was- he was possessed. An abomination, to hear most people tell.  
  
      Hawke shifted in his sleep and muttered something incomprehensible, and Anders froze, thoughts scattering, and then turned slowly to look at Hawke over his shoulder again.  
  
      _Did he try to wait up?_ Anders thought. _Did he try to wait up for me?_

      Anders sat down heavily onto a cot and suppressed a giddy laugh with his hands. Perhaps the thought wasn’t so absurd after all.  
  
      Justice grumbled at the thought again, but Anders didn’t care, or tried not to. The warm glow in his heart, no matter how uncertain and flickering, felt such a good and precious thing, and he didn’t want it to flicker out. There were so few happy and beautiful things in his life.  
  
      For a moment Anders wondered what he should do - Hawke’s family would undoubtedly be worried about Hawke, but then again they would know where Hawke was, and it was not like Hawke hadn’t unexpectedly staid the night when Anders needed his help with an emergency. Carver would come looking for him if they worried too much. Better let Hawke sleep - Anders wasn’t even sure he knew how to wake Hawke anyway, if dropping him to the floor like a sack didn’t do the trick.  
  
      Anders went through his night time routine a touch clumsily, stripping out of his clothes, half-wondering if he should be doing so less freely, but found himself almost wishing that Hawke would wake and catch him. It was so silly he was almost embarrassed - but only almost. He couldn’t resist touching Hawke’s hair again when he leaned over Hawke’s warm shoulder to blow out the candle.  
  
      He curled up in his bunk in a small alcove at the back of the clinic, and drew the curtain. He pulled the patched-up quilt over himself and searched for a comfortable position. Even after he found it, he found himself unable to sleep even though every fiber of his being begged for rest. This was nothing new - there was rarely a night when worries and stress, or plans, or nightmares didn’t keep him awake. But this night he was not kept up by worry, or nightmares, or Justice’s insistence that he should be doing more, should be working even harder, or even his own persistent need to do something. No - instead he was almost painfully aware that Hawke was sleeping so close in an intoxicating cloud of embrium, hair spreading wild over the table. He hugged the blanket closer to himself, pulling the coarse fabric tight against his back and shoulders, trying to imagine what it’d be like to sleep with Hawke snuggled against his back, an arm wrapped around his shoulder or side, hand curled on his chest, or what it’d be like to hug Hawke close and press his nose into that red mane of curls or against Hawke’s warm skin, or rest his forehead against the freckly chest. Anders’ chest ached at the thought, and he pressed his face into his pillow, trying to suppress a wide smile.  
  
      _Distraction_ , muttered a thought.  
  
      _Get off_ , Anders told the thought, but his mood was deflating already, and the little warm glow inside him dimmed to a mere ember. He curled his knees up to his chest and held himself tight.

  
      _It’s not like it’s ever going to happen. I shouldn’t. I can’t. He doesn’t deserve that._


End file.
